1.

The University of Cincinnati Center for Business Analytics is an outreach center that collaborates with industry partners on applied research and continuing education in business analytics. One of the programs offered by the center is a quarterly Business Intelligence Symposium. Each symposium features three speakers on the real-world use of analytics. Each corporate member of the center (there are currently 10) receives five free seats to each symposium. Nonmembers wishing to attend must pay $75 per person. Each attendee receives breakfast, lunch, and free parking. The following are the costs incurred for putting on this event: Rental cost for the auditorium $150 Registration processing $8.50 per person Speaker costs (3 speakers $800 each) Continental breakfast $4.00 per person Lunch $7.00 per person Parking $5.00 per person

a) Build a spreadsheet model that calculates a profit or loss based on the number of nonmember registrants.

b) Use Goal Seek to find the number of nonmember registrants that will make the event break even.

c) The Center for Business Analytics is considering a refund policy for no-shows. No refund would be given for members who do not attend, but nonmembers who do not attend will be refunded 50% of the price. Extend the model you developed in a) for the Business Intelligence Symposium to account for the fact that, historically, 25% of members who registered do not show and 10% of registered nonmembers do not attend. The center pays the caterer for breakfast and lunch based on the number of registrants (not the number of attendees). However, the center pays for parking only for those who attend. What is the profit if each corporate member registers their full allotment of tickets and 127 nonmembers register?

d) Use a two-way data table to show how profit changes as a function of number of registered nonmembers and the no-show percentage of nonmembers. Vary the number of nonmember registrants from 80 to 160 in increments of 5 and the percentage of nonmember no-shows from 10 to 30% in increments of 2%.

2.

Galaxy Co. distributes wireless routers to Internet service providers. Galaxy procures each router for $75 from its supplier and sells each router for $125. Monthly demand for the router is a normal random variable with a mean of 100 units and a standard deviation of 20 units. At the beginning of each month, Galaxy orders enough routers from its supplier to bring the inventory level up to 100 routers. If the monthly demand is less than 100, Galaxy pays $15 per router that remains in inventory at the end of the month. If the monthly demand exceeds 100, Galaxy sells only the 100 routers in stock. Galaxy assigns a shortage cost of $30 for each unit of demand that is unsatisfied to represent a loss-ofgoodwill among its customers. Management would like to use a simulation model to analyze this situation. What is the average monthly profit resulting from its policy of stocking 100 routers at the beginning of each month?

3.

Grear Tire Company has produced a new tire with an estimated mean lifetime mileage of 36,500 miles. Management also believes that the standard deviation is 5,000 miles and that tire mileage is normally distributed. To promote the new tire, Grear has offered to refund some money if the tire fails to reach 30,000 miles before the tire needs to be replaced. Specifically, for tires with a lifetime below 30,000 miles, Grear will refund a customer $1 per 100 miles short of 30,000. a) For each tire sold, what is the expected cost of the promotion? b) What is the probability that Grear will refund more than $50 for a tire?